With Help From Cadc, Ex-janitor Is Cleaning Up As Entrepreneur * Program Helped Lawrence Strickland Go From Unemployed To Successfully Self-employed. Players

June 08, 1998|by SUSAN TODD, The Morning Call

Lawrence Strickland's steady paycheck was just too good to cash in for a dream.

That was until November, when the 52-year-old Allentown resident lost his job as a custodian at Phillipsburg-based Mallinckrodt Baker Inc.

It wasn't the first time Strickland had been laid off from the job he held for 10 years, but this time, the abrupt end of a steady income and good benefits coincided with information he had received from his niece about the Community Action Development Corp.'s Start Your Business program.

FOR THE RECORD - (Published Wednesday, June 10, 1998) An article on Monday incorrectly reported Lawrence Strickland's last place of employment. He was an operator and custodian at Merrill Creek Reservoir in Harmony Township, N.J., until November.

The time was right to nurture what until then was mere whimsy.

The CADC's program, which recently began its second series of classes, targets center city residents who have skills but who have not had access to a business education. The program provides would-be entrepreneurs with mentors; it helps refine their ideas into viable business enterprises, provides them with a look at their competition and teaches them about marketing, bookkeeping and contract bidding.

"They're like a godsend," Strickland said. "I didn't know where to start. They gave me the guidance from start to end, and they're still in my corner now."

Strickland was among 14 participants in the program who graduated in March.

Five of the other participants had businesses and came into the program to strengthen their skills. The classes helped many of the others develop their ideas for a business.

The CADC program isn't the only one that helps empower small-business people. Unlike others, though, it focuses most on people who are generally at a disadvantage because of language barriers, race and, in some cases, income.

At Lehigh University's Small Business Development Center, about 25 percent of the 1,400 people who use the center's resources are hoping to start their own business, and another quarter of them have started businesses but need help.

The remaining 50 percent come to the center after their businesses are up and running.

Holsonback said CADC shares the development center's resources, which are funded with a combination of federal, state and private dollars.

CADC's program is run with money from several different sources, including Community Development Block Grant money from Allentown and a grant from PP&L Resources Inc.

Strickland brought more than an idea with him to CADC's program. He had strong skills, a work history, and he had acquired a number of pieces of cleaning equipment over the years, so he wasn't faced with the challenge of raising capital immediately to get his business started.

But what he did need was a network that would provide him with contacts -- and jobs.

Suzanne Goodell, who manages CADC in Allentown, was so confident in Strickland that she recommended his services to a physician friend looking for a new office-cleaning service.

One contract soon led to another.

The doctor provided him with a reference that he used to get daily work at the Baum School of Art in Allentown. Five days a week, he's at the school taking out garbage, setting up classrooms and doing maintenance work.

In a matter of months, Strickland's landed five contracts. He expects to earn at least $25,000 this year.

"We had a lot of confidence that he was trustworthy, reliable and competent," said Julie Thomases, the CADC's business development director in Allentown.

Strickland, whose company is called LS & Son Cleaning and Building Management, employs his wife and son but plans to grow. He aspires to become a supervisor, overseeing the company's operations and its employees.

One day, he said, not altogether whimsically, the company could be generating annual revenues of $100,000.

"Now that I have things started," Strickland said, "that's my dream."

To find out more about the CADC's entrepreneurial training program, contact Thomases or Goodell at (610) 433-5703.